Experts estimate that hurricane-destroyed homes could take years to rebuild. A small team of IT leaders in higher education and experts from the building trades hope to expedite the work with an augmented and virtual reality (AVR) training program intended to draw people to the trades who previously would have considered it “dirty, underpaying and uninteresting.”
Hope4Homes is the brainchild of Jack Werner, a master home inspector for the National Association of Home Builders. Recently, Werner and Todd Feehan, head of Dad’s Plumbing in Oklahoma, approached Oral Roberts University CIO Mike Mathews to explore the possibility of setting up an AVR-based trade school that taught students the ins and outs of home inspections, plumbing and related disciplines. Mathews created some demo technology, which, he said, “blew their minds.”